Dear Larry, now that you have been appointed as President-elect
Obama’s economic supremo, we need you to explain why you enabled the
unregulated CDS market to balloon to some $60 trillion!
Mr. Obama said at his news conference November 25th about his
incoming administration that "When we make mistakes, we admit them."
How we arrived at what Obama called "this huge mountain of debt"
and your role in it, needs to be public information, especially
since your appointment does not require Senate confirmation. On your
watch as Clinton administration Treasury Secretary, you turned a
blind eye to the public warnings by the CFTC’s Brooksley Born about
how, in her testimony, this build-up of CDSs could cause a major
blow-up in the financial system. As we all know now, these reckless
bets on defaults are at the core of today’s financial crisis.
As the New York Times reported in October and again on
November 25th, you not only reprimanded Ms. Born, but actually went
on to champion, along with Robert Rubin and Alan Greenspan, the 2000
law that kept CDSs deregulated – as they still are today. Will your
first order of business in the Obama administration be to see that
CDSs are properly regulated and only traded with full transparency
on a public exchange?
We agree with the New York Times November 25th call for
you to fully explain to the public the reasons for your error in
judgment. Even Alan Greenspan has admitted that his economic model
was the wrong one. Surely you can give us your own explanation. The
new consensus, after the current spectacular failure, is that
markets are not always efficient or self-correcting. Can you,
therefore, assure the public that you have also learned this lesson?
This will assure the public that your advice to President-elect
Obama can be trusted.
Hazel Henderson
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